![]() Soon incredible songs like "Can't Find My Way Home" and "Presence of the Lord" began pouring out of quartet. "Steve's face lit up when he saw Ginger," Clapton wrote in his memoir, "while my heart sank, because up till that point we were just having fun, with no agenda." Baker's presence turned them into a real band, and with Ric Grech rounding on the group on bass. One night Ginger Baker showed up, totally unannounced. The two friends began jamming together at Winwood's English cottage, quickly discovering they had incredible chemistry, but not really thinking about forming an actual band. Traffic and Cream both folded around the same time, leaving Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood both without bands or clear plans for their futures. He went on to become a songwriter-for-hire, penning tracks like the Santana/Michelle Branch collaboration "The Game of Love" and reuniting with fellow Radical Danielle Brisebois for the soundtrack to the 2013 romance Begin Again. But Alexander broke up the band before the reflective "Someday We'll Know" could be released as the album's second single. "You Get What You Give," with its triumphant chorus and bootstrapping spirit, is one of the Nineties' most singular singles, while tracks like "Flowers" fused together revved-up rock and passion-fueled soul in a way that tipped savvy listeners off to Alexander's wide swath of influences. A bubbling stew of influences that had glossier production and more pointed lyrics about corporate America than its alt-rock-radio brethren, Brainwashed could have been the beginning of a new pop order. The project of songwriter Gregg Alexander, New Radicals hit the sweet spot between adult-contemporary and "alternative" that was just beginning to be discovered when Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too came out in 1998. Work started on a follow-up but Wilson's drug abuse was spinning out of control and it remained unfinished when he drowned in 1983. Haunting tracks like "Farewell My Friend" and "River Song" reflect his fragile state and reveal just how far he'd grown as a composer and lyricist. Recording took two years, and by 1977 he was finally ready to unveil the haunting Pacific Ocean Blue. Not happy at taking direction from his bandmates who never saw him as a serious songwriter, he began squirreling away songs for a solo album. But with his brother Brian largely out of commission, he began contributing his own material to Beach Boys albums. ![]() The drummer was in his early 30s, but looked ten years older, and years of drinking and drug abuse added significant gravel to his once pristine singing voice. He was also the most naturally charismatic and fun-loving, though by the mid-1970s his non-stop party lifestyle was beginning to take a heavy toll. The Convicts had a brief courtship with Death Row, but the group ultimately disbanded when Big Mike went to replace Willie D in the Geto Boys in 1993.ĭennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy that actually surfed. Between the jokes, there's vivid and intense critiques of the prison-industrial complex: No wonder former N.W.A member Dr. But Convicts is an artifact of a different era, a historical document of the time when rappers were America's loudest defense of the first Amendment, and mouthpieces as interested in pushing buttons as pushing boundaries. ![]() Like a Andrew "Dice" Clay routine set to funky breaks, there are over-the-top, deliberately offensive journeys into sexism ("Woop Her Ass") and racism ("Illegal Aliens") that would justifiably be called "problematic" today. Released on pioneering Texas label Def Jam, the Convicts took the provocative lyrics of Ice Cube and 2 Live Crew into the realm of the absolutely ludicrous and completely irresponsible: "Fuck School" is a dropout's anthem and "1-900-Dial-a-Crook" explains how to steal a car in great detail. The lone LP from the Convicts - the duo of Big Mike and Lord 3-2 - is one of the filthiest, funniest documents of Houston shock-rap that followed in the wake of the Geto Boys in the early Nineties.
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